M17xR3 Restage Plan

Waiting for my new laptop (still says in Production), but thought I'd plan the restage. I've read a ton of threads on this forum (thanks Batboy!), and have pieced together the following. I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions.

I'm getting an M17xR3 with the 2630QM, Radeon 6970M, 4GB RAM, Intel 6300n Wireless.
I plan to have an Intel 510 120GB SSD for the boot/system drive, and a WD Black 500GB drive for a "data" drive (though I'm tempted to go with two SSDs).

Initial:
- Boot and basic function test
- AlienRespawn to copy to USB drive
---Start/AlienRespawn
---“Backup” from left menu
---“Create System Recovery Media”
---Follow prompts, use USB stick drive
- “burn in” for 24 hours to verify hardware

Memory:
- Swap in 8GB HyperX
- Change BIOS to use XMP2
- Boot and basic function test
- “burn in” for 24 hours to verify memory

Restage:
• >Remove 320GB shipped drive (set aside)
• >Install Intel 510 SSD into bay 1
• >Install WD Black 500GB drive into bay 0
• >Leave BIOS as RAID
• >Set Bay 1 to be boot drive
• >Install Windows 7 Ultimate w/SP1 slipstreamed from USB drive
• >Disable Automatic Driver Installation (“change device installation settings”
• >Disable automatic Windows Updates
• >disable Win7 SuperFetch (see below)
configure DVD drive to be M:
configure WD to be D: drive, format
• >Configure page file to be WD Black drive
• >Copy drivers from USB to D: drive (WD)
• >Chipset Driver (Cougar Point driver?) (R289402)
? >Intel Management Engine (R290940)
• >NEC USB 3.0 Driver
• >Intel Rapid Storage driver
• >Free Fall Sensor driver
• >Alienware On-Screen Display application
• >Dell-downloaded AMD 6970M driver (includes Intel driver)
• <skipped for now>Catalyst 11.5 Mobility
• >LAN Driver (Atheros driver) Set DNS/IP
• >Wireless driver – Intel 6300 – Set DNS/IP
• >Audio Driver (IDT)
• >Bluetooth Driver
• >Touchpad Driver
• >Media Card Reader
• >Windows Update for all outstanding patches
• >Install IE9
• >Join domain
• >Disable Windows Search indexing (SSD)
• >.Net 4.0 (required for Alienware Command Center)
• >Alienware Command Center
• >Full system backup to external drive
• >Intel SSD optimizer tools

Additional:
• >Alienware look/feel thread items http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ook-feel-after-clean-install-windows-7-a.html
• >Office 2010
• >EverQuest 2, all patch updates
• >Adobe Flash
• >Adobe PDF reader

 

that sounds awesome dude. I think this can be used as a guide for the newbies!

 

Thanks! Still just a plan, I won't know for sure until the laptop actually arrives and I test this all...

 

Keeping an eye out for the infrared driver. I got that question too...

 

Looks like no infrared driver listed from Dell for the R3. Maybe it's not needed.

 

Ok! I did my restage last night. I've updated the plan in the original post with what I actually did (very close to the original plan, just a few clarifications). Again, credit goes to Batboy as this is based mostly off his excellent post(s).

Everything went very smoothly, no errors, and I have a clean Device Manager.

After installing the Dell-provided 6970M drivers, I had planned to then install the latest Catalyst 11.5 Mobility drivers. I didn't do that last night, though, as I've seen some references to using the m18x drivers instead. Can anyone chime in on what the best updated Catalyst drivers are that I should use?

 

Thats nearly identical to what I did 2 weeks ago! Should work like a charm.